


The Double Camellia

by thegoldhopeful



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Animal Transformation, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8298319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoldhopeful/pseuds/thegoldhopeful
Summary: Sugawara Koushi's summer of spirits, adventure, true love, and the deep green forest.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally for the hq!! magicfest but as it turns out moving house and starting second year uni left me with a lot less free time than I expected (second year is a more work than first to say the least). So I'm probably gonna continue filling the spell prompts at my own pace. You can also expect to see something for secret santa and rarepair exchange which are coming up. 
> 
> Anyway
> 
> The prompt for this was 'fairytale' and 'shapeshifting'  
> I tried to add a little bit of the repetition that we see in most storytelling. Parts of this fic were inspired by the English ballad Tam Lin, which is objectively a bit creepy, but has some interesting parts.  
> [Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3yTEUnyYDA&list=FLcVy1PA_0b63eeFlAObIbhw&index=10) a recording of it by Anais Mitchell. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Sugawara Koushi sits on a cushion on the wooden corridor that runs around the outside of the house. The shoji that usually shut the house up have been pushed aside to let the light and the delicate spring breeze float through the rooms. The house is quiet, but the village is loud with the clatter of carts and voices and the beginning of the planting season. 

Koushi is watching the forest. He has been hearing the forest whisper to him for a while now, its voice the gentle brush of leaves and its sentences the pattern of light on ferns. It has always held a fascination for him, even when he was a child, fearful of the dark beneath the trees and the oni that lurked at the foot of the mountain.

Still, the forest calls. It’s voice is the voice of leaves in the rising wind, or a hidden brook, or ferns.The house is quiet, bored and baking under the spring sun, and he sneaks out of the wooden doors, slipping quietly through the town towards the edges of the forest. 

Koushi wanders past the first few trees and bushes quickly, finding that deeper in the forest the floor is much clearer and easier to walk on, as if the outer edge was a barrier to keep people away. It’s cooler within the forest, and the sunlight slants down through the trees making golden pillars at random intervals. The air is thick with the scent of leaves and moss and damp, like the decaying incense of a cathedral occupied only by strange and forgotten spirits. He wanders through it slowly, thoughtlessly caressing the new leaves and the trunks of the trees. 

He comes upon the clearing suddenly, as if, like some sort of wild animal, it had been hiding nearby for some time and had only now decided to present itself. The glade is almost completely circular, except for one side that is cut off by the rocky side of the mountain. Suga turns in wonder, taking in the scene and the hum of insects buzzing in spring air. 

His foot catches on a stone and he trips, rolling into the long grass. After the shock of the moment passes, he laughs at himself for being so clumsy, so absorbed in the forest. The grass beneath him is soft and warm and he looks up to see that the sky, framed by the circle of darker trees. White and fluffy clouds crawl slowly across the bright blue expanse. He closes his eyes. 

The grass waves gently in the breeze around him and a bug crawls up his hand. He closes his eyes. 

Koushi soon grows listless with the heat and the tickling grass. He sits up and turns around, trying to remember the way back to the village. As he makes his way to the edge of the clearing, a plant catches his eye. It’s a camellia bush, but with only one flower so early in the year. The bloom is blood red, eye catching not because of its colour but because two delicate flowers erupt from the same stem. 

Koushi contemplates it in amazement. Other that their unnatural proximity, the two flowers seem perfectly normal and healthy. He carefully breaks the stem, thinking to keep the unusual flower, perhaps to give it to his mother.

The wind seems to blow a little colder. He scans the forest, but all the directions look the same. Ranks on ranks of trees shade dim green undergrowth, hiding who knows what beneath their boughs. The only identifiable feature is the rock wall of the mountain. The forest doesn’t seem so welcoming any more. Koushi’s breath comes quicker now, high and panicked, as if the forest is wrapping its arms around him and squeezing.

Koushi hesitates in the meadow, unwilling to venture into the looming trees. 

“You need to leave,” a voice says, breathy like the wind.

Koushi starts and twists around, trying to find the source, but the forest is faceless and dark.

“You don’t belong here. You’ve already trespassed where you are not welcome and damaged the forest.” 

Koushi looks down to the flower in his hand, remembering in surprising detail how the brittle stem had snapped beneath his touch. He looks back up and suddenly there are eyes beneath the trees, watching him. 

For a moment, Koushi can’t move, staring into the eyes, almost human, but not quite, and then he runs. Through the forest. Past trees. Past bushes. Over the Stream. On to the road. 

It takes infinitely less time to get out of the forest than to get in it and before Suga has time to think he’s running down the dirt road towards the town. He slows to a jog, feet gradually dragging until he stops completely, gazing back at the forest. The double headed red flower is still clutched in his hand. 

Koushi ventures towards the forest over and over again over the course of the next week, but the deep green of the trees, the colour of secrets, always keeps him from going further than the road along by the rice fields. 

The next time he enters the forest is summer, and heat waves bend the air above the road. Cicadas sing in the trees and the vegetable gardens around the village glow deep green, heavy with ripe produce. It’s too hot to do anything these days. Koushi has spent the last few in the coolest room at the back of the house, fanning himself, too hot and tired to move. 

He wakes up early, before dawn, the only time when it’s cool enough to get anything done. Koushi jiggles his leg over breakfast and paces around the house until he can no longer stand the oppressive silence of the paper walls. Outside the village, the road stretches out into the cool dawn. The pink sky in the east only beginning to chase off the mist from the valley. He slows to a walk, the dry dust of the road cool on his feet. The road bends around the forest, trees block the village from sight and when Suga looks back the dark canopy, slightly blue in the morning light, is all he sees. He keeps walking, passing a roadside shrine and following the curve of the forest.    


Koushi comes, quite suddenly, upon a narrow foot bridge that splits off from the path and leads over the tiny creek and into the forest. He squints at it for a moment, trying to remember if he’d ever seen it before. He’s walked the path thousands of times and can’t recall any bridge, but the structure itself looks ancient, stones sunken into the soft mud of the bank as if they’ve sat there forever. 

Without really thinking, Koushi crosses the bridge and enters the forest. He follows a narrow trail through the trees, marveling at the cool blue light that illuminates delicate fog swirling around his feet, just above the forest floor. It’s cooler beneath the trees, and Koushi shivers, wrapping his yukata closer about him. 

He looks behind him, and sees only trees, the path is obscured by layers of shadow. In front of him too, the path seems to have vanished into underbrush and ferns. Koushi twists around, looking for the path. His breath is coming faster now and his chest starts to ache with the onset of panic. 

There is nothing. The forest has abandoned all directionality. Everywhere he looks, he sees only tree trunks and grass and ferns, a few low bushes and the beginning of a stand of bamboo, swaying delicately in the early morning breeze. The forest is no longer deep green but a washed out quilt of grey on grey on grey. The sun might be rising outside, but within the forest is its own isolated kingdom of gloom. Suddenly, the thousands of quiet sounds that make up the forest, the scratching of leaf on leaf, the burrowing of small furry animals, the twitter of birds just waking up stops. The air is filled with a blue silence. 

Koushi runs. He scrambles wildly over broken stumps and small plants, trying to find the path but only careening further into the forest. His lungs hurt with the effort of breathing so heavily. His mind is filled only with panic. The silence follows him, pressing down on his ear drums until he can no longer tell whether the sounds of footsteps are his own or a stranger’s or an army of running creatures. 

The forest floor is rocky and uneven. Grasses snatch at Koushi’s sandals and vines grab his ankles. He stumbles and trips, his toe caught on a rock and sending him careening. For a tiny infinity he is flying through terrifying emptiness, anticipating the landing. 

Something, or rather, someone grabs his wrist, hauling him upright and steadying him back on his feet. Koushi’s knees give out and he slips into a crouch, one hand presses against the ground as he catches his breath. He can feel the presence of the person beside him, the person who caught him, but somehow looking at them is too much to contemplate. 

“Are you okay?” there’s a crackle of dirt as the other person kneels. 

Koushi takes a breath, his heartbeat returning to normal after his frantic sprint. He nod and turns to look at the other. The man is about Koushi’s age and height, with a wide face and dark brown eyes. His skin is tanned from the outdoors and his dark hair is cropped close to his head. 

Koushi opens his mouth and then shuts it again. 

“Are you sure?” asks the other man, “You seem very pale.” 

Koushi swallows and nods. “I’m fine. Just got a little lost.” He straightens up slowly, carefully putting weight back on his legs. 

The other man stands up with him. “You seemed a little scared,” he says, chuckling. 

“I wasn’t scared,” Koushi says, regaining his composure. “I was just… restless,” he finishes lamely. 

The stranger chuckles and seems about to question the point, but when he sees the look in Koushi’s eyes he merely raises his hands a little and says, “I’m Daichi, by the way, I’ll take you back to the path.”

“Suga,” Koushi responds, breathlessly, and follows Daichi through the trees. 

The noises of the forest have returned, and the trees are bathed with the pink light of morning. Koushi can’t quite believe that this is the same place as the dark wood of a few minutes ago. 

Daichi chatters as he leads Koushi through the woods, and Koushi finds himself quickly drawn into the conversation with the strange man. It’s a comfortable sort of atmosphere, like an old blanket, familiar.  

They linger at the edge of the forest, unwilling to leave each other’s company. Finally, the conversation dries up like a summer creek. 

“Will I see you again?” Koushi asks after a few moments of staring silently off at the rice paddies that sparkle blue in the summer sun.

Daichi pauses, and then takes a deep breath. “I don’t think so,” he says, voice tight, “it’s dangerous for you to come here.”

Koushi’s gaze snaps over to him but Daichi refuses to meet his eye, shuffling awkwardly. 

“Well,” Koushi says, bitterly, his mood sinking.

“You should forget about this,” Daichi says, quickly turning and vanishing back into the forest.

Koushi stands speechless for a moment, torn between chasing after Daichi and heading back to the town. He humphs, Daichi’s words catching up to him. “Fine,” he huffs, “I’ll leave then.”

He scrambles up onto the road and marches down it aggressively. “I don’t think so,” Suga parrots sarcastically, “it’s too dangerous.” He stamps around a bend. “I’m a dangerous forest man and I know you better than you know yourself,” he says in a mockery of Daichi voice, fuming. “He can’t tell me what’s too dangerous for me. I don’t need to listen to him.”

Koushi stamps all the way back to the village, and continues to seethe for the entire day. He spends most of the evening angrily sulking. He knows it’s childish, but it takes his mind off how much the words had truly hurt. 

Koushi is nothing if not determined, and he stomps back to the forest the next day. He paces along the road, looking for the bridge and the trail he’d used yesterday, but it never appears. It almost seems to have vanished into the forest. 

“Nice try,” Koushi grumbles, hiking up the hem of his yukata. He gathers his strength, eyeing the little creek that runs between the road and the forest. He jumps, grabbing at the grass on the other side. One leg falls short and is plunged into ice cold water. Koushi gasps and races up the bank, almost losing his sandals in the process. 

He flops down before the trees, panting. “I’m coming in whether you like it or not,” he gasps. 

Leaves rustle behind him and he whips around, startled. The forest is silent. Koushi narrows his eyes. “Don’t try scare me off; it won’t work,” he tells the forest. It rustles again and he lets out and involuntary squeak. “Don’t even try,” he snaps back.

The rustling starts to turn into leafy giggles as Daichi emerges from the forest, wading through underbrush, a bright smile on his wide face. 

“You!” Koushi roars with fake anger, managing to grab Daichi before he can retreat back to the forest and rubbing his short hair. 

Daichi keeps laughing, halfheartedly trying to shake him off. “What’s it going to take to get you to stay away?” he asks when Koushi let’s go. 

Koushi gives Daichi his biggest grin. His chest feels warm and too big and too small at once just from seeing Daichi again. “You’re stuck with me now.”

“Unfortunate,” Daichi mumbles.

“Why you!” Koushi pretends to snarl, feigning anger. “So rude.”

Koushi visits the forest almost every day for the rest of the summer. Seeing Daichi never gets old, and they spend their time exploring the sunny green meadows of the forest, or the almost blue groves beneath the mountain. They chat for hours, laying in the sunny grass. Koushi tells Daichi about his family, and the village, and the miles of rice paddies that breed only mosquitos in the summer. Daichi tells him about the forest, the sound of rabbits in the morning, and the owls in the purple twilight. 

Sometimes Koushi asks Daichi about his family, but those conversations follow the same script every time. “Tell me about your past too,” Koushi suggests, and Daichi looks pained for a moment, before shaking his head and turning away. They sit in silence until one of them caves and moves on to a new conversation topic.

Summer fades slowly into fall, leaves turning red and crispy, but so far only a few have fallen to line the edge of the road. 

“Why can’t you come back to the village with me?” Koushi asks again, seemingly for the hundredth time. 

Daichi shifts nervously, avoiding Koushi’s gaze when the other man turns to look at him. 

“Come on,” Koushi says, “at least tell me  _ why  _ you won’t say.”

“I can’t,” Daichi replies, voice soft and smooth and green. “I want to, but I can’t.” He looks at Koushi and smiles a little, the expression glowing in the afternoon light. 

“How many more times are you going to tell me that?” Koushi asks jokingly. He already knows what Daichi’s response is going to be. 

“At least-” Daichi begins. 

“-once more,” Koushi finishes for him. He lays back on the soft moss of the forest floor, looking up at the pattern of the green leaves. 

Daichi takes his hand, gently stroking Koushi’s knuckles. His fingers are rough from the forest and Koushi smiles, squeezing his hand. 

“I mean it though,” Daichi says, and there’s a touch of sadness to his voice that wasn’t there before. “I want to be able to go with you.”

Koushi sits up, his face growing red, beside him Daichi is staring off into the green middle distance of the woods. His face is smooth and untroubled, but there’s a sort of sadness in his eyes that Koushi instinctively recognizes as regret. He swallows, trying to decide what to say. 

“You don’t need to protect me Daichi,” he begins, “I can protect myself just fine-”

“It’s not that,” Daichi says quickly, “It’s…” He trails off, searching for words. 

Suga settles down on the soft forest floor and waits; it would be unlike Daichi to stop talking now that he’s started. 

Daichi sighs and picks at the ground beneath them with the hand not holding Koushi’s. Finally he says, “I’m afraid Suga, I’m afraid of ruining this.” 

Koushi’s breath catches momentarily in throat at the way Daichi says his name, the way the other man’s voice almost breaks over the two short syllables. “Daichi…” He says and then realizes he has nothing else to say. Instead he looks back at Daichi and smiles as widely as he can. “You won’t ruin anything. I won’t let you. I like you too much for that. Trust me?”

Daichi grins back, smile spreading uncertainly across his broad face. “Thank you,” he says, and then, “can I tell you a story?”

Koushi nods, not entirely sure what to expect. 

“It starts,” Daichi says, taking a deep breath, his eyes growing misty and far away, “as many things do, with a death.”

“Once, there was a young boy whose father had recently passed away, leaving him nothing but his aging grandmother and a stack of unpaid debts. The boy left his home and family and went off down the dirt road to the city to seek his fortune.”

“He walked for a day and a night before he came to a forest by a mountain. The road continued on around the forest, but the boy saw that a mudslide had blocked the path. He was unwilling to turn back to his village where he would surely be ridiculed, so he decided to walk through the forest to to the other side of the mudslide.” 

“He started into the forest. Before he had taken ten steps in, the sunlight had faded into a murky glow. The trees were so thick that the boy could not see the sun to navigate. He kept walking until it became too dark to see, then he ate a little of the rice he had brought with him, and lay down on the mossy forest floor to sleep.”

“The next day he wandered further and further into the forest. He was beginning to think that he should have come to the edge of the mudslide. Again he ate a little food before settling down to sleep, and again the next day he wandered beneath the endless canopy of trees. Since there was no trail, walking through the underbrush was tough.”

Daichi’s eyes are very far away now, as if he’s seeing something beneath the trunks of the far off trees that no one else can.

Koushi wants to interrupt and ask how the meandering story is even relevant to their present predicament, he’s equally afraid that Daichi might stop talking for good, and entranced by the narrative. 

“By the third day, the young boy knew that he was lost. He had also finished all the food that his grandmother packed for him, so when he lay down to sleep that night on the cold ground he felt very hungry and homesick.”

“Suddenly, a cat appeared from behind a tree ahead of him, its white tail swishing back and forth in the cool air. The boy thought, if a cat that fat and well groomed is out here in the forest, then there must be a town nearby; there’s no way such a lovely cat lives alone in the middle of the woods. When the cat turned and began to twist through the trees, he ran after it.”

“The cat was surprisingly fast, and the boy found he had a hard time keeping up with it. The boy was so desperately focused on following the cat, that he forgot to pay attention to where he stepped, and left behind him a trail of broken shrubs and ferns.Eventually, he could not take another step. He collapsed on the forest floor and fell immediately into a deep slumber.”

“When he awoke, he looked around him and nothing in the forest was familiar, even the trees were different species than before. He had no idea how far he’d run or how long he’d slept, all he knew was that he was absolutely famished.”

“Just as he thought this, a bush appeared in his view, as if by magic, covered in the most delicious looking berries he’d ever seen. They were plump and red and succulent. He plucked a berry from the tree and popped it in his mouth.”

Daichi’s brow is pinched with worry and regret, and his voice is quiet, as if he’s talking more to himself than to Koushi. 

Koushi wants to reach out and touch him, reassure him, but something about the tension of the moment and the distance is Daichi’s face keeps him frozen to his seat. Suga shivers even in the heat of the autumn sun. The forest seems different than it did before, and he is gripped with a vague sense of foreboding.

“The boy ate as many berries as he could. In fact, he picked the whole bush clean, but since he hadn’t eaten in several days, he was still hungry, and set off in search of more food. As he walked, the forest seemed to darken around him, but he was not afraid. He heard the sound of whispers and mysterious echoes carried along on the cold breeze, but he was not afraid. The trees began to grow taller and spikier and closer together, but he was not afraid. Quite suddenly, he emerged from the forest into a clearing. It was a perfect circle of brownish grass, except for one side, which was formed out of the rocky side of the mountain. Even within the clearing, it was dim and grey and the boy felt the chilly pang of droplets of rain for the first time.”

“He turned to find that a mysterious figure had appeared in front of the rock wall. He stumbled away from it, tripping over his own feet and falling in his haste. He felt a shiver of fear, but perhaps it was just the cold. The figure said nothing but flowed towards him with a fluid, inhuman, gait.”

“Aware that he was being confronted with the spirit of the forest, the boy bowed deeply and kept his head down, waiting for the spirit to speak.” 

“‘Boy, why are you in my forest?’”

“The boy replied as respectfully as he could, ‘I am trying to get to the city to seek my fortune. A mudslide blocked the path so I decided to walk through the forest.’”

“The boy could feel the air around him growing colder, and the wind roaring in the treetops. The rain started to pound around him, seeming to go right through the spirit.” 

“‘You have stomped through my forest,’ said the spirit angrily, ‘destroying plants and living creatures wherever you tread. It is unacceptable.’”

“By now, the boy was very afraid, but he knew that he had to take responsibility for his actions. ‘I know what I did was very wrong,’ he said, bowing even more deeply, ‘and if I am allowed to continue my journey, I will immediately find your shrine and make a bountiful offering to you.’ The rain pounded even harder, turning to icy white hail as he said those words.”

“‘No,’ the spirit hissed, ‘that is nowhere near enough to make up for the damage you’ve caused. The ferns and trees here are both my body, and my family, and when you injure them, you injure me. You have harmed my family, and I will take my revenge in kind.’”

“Immediately seized with icy terror at the thought of the forest spirit attacking his family and his town, the boy threw himself down on his knees in front of the spirit and pleaded, ‘please great spirit, don’t hurt my family. It was my mistake that injured you, not theirs, so take my life and be satisfied.’”

“The spirit paused and around them the storm began to subside…” Daichi trails off in the middle of his phrase. His eyes losing their far off look and moving down to his hands. There’s a deep sadness in his expression and Koushi half expects him to continue, but he doesn’t open his mouth. 

“That boy was you,” he says, and it’s not a question. 

Daichi nods, not looking up. “Since then I’ve been imprisoned here as the guardian of this forest. My freedom is the price I paid for my mistake, and if I leave…” he pauses significantly, “well I don’t really know what would happen.”

Koushi tries to think of something to say. The story is so big and so personal that he doesn’t know how to respond. After a few long minutes of silence, bees buzzing and Daichi staring pensively at his hands, Koushi manages, “thank you. Thank you for telling me that.”

Daichi looks at him and smiles shyly, the expression a little out of place on his confident features. It makes him look more approachable, less like a creature of the forest and more like a regular human being. “Thanks for listening,” he says, awkwardly. 

Koushi can’t help but giggle at that, “No really,” he says, “ Thanks for trusting me.”

Daichi stares at him for a moment as if he’s trying to figure out what Koushi is saying, and then blushes furiously red as soon as he does. He grabs Koushi in a tight one armed hug, burying his hot face in Koushi’s hair. 

Koushi keeps laughing at his embarrassment, and at the strange and sudden change in tone. The laughter is contagious, and soon Daichi joins in, his breath tickling Koushi’s neck, so Koushi tickles Daichi’s side in revenge. They roll across the soft moss together, in and out of sunbeams, laughing into the other’s chest. 

They come to a halt quite suddenly, laughter forgotten, and Koushi rolls off of Daichi to lie beside him. 

“I want to come with you,” Daichi says, his hand finding Koushi’s hair, and brushing it behind his ear. His voice is small and resigned. 

“We could still try,” Koushi says, and Daichi snorts humorlessly. “No really, if you can get to the edge of the forest, I’ll pick you up, and we’ll run away so quickly that the forest spirit will never realize you’re gone.” Koushi is aware of how ridiculous it is, but he can’t quite let go of all those dreams of the future he could share with Daichi. 

“Thats it!” Daichi surges upwards, expression and voice suddenly bright and animated, “Suga you’re a genius!”

“Don’t flatter me,” Koushi mumbles, eyes closed and lost in his own thoughts. 

Daichi gentle shakes his shoulder, “no really, Suga! Suga!”

“What?” Koushi sits up, bemused. 

Daichi’s face is illuminated, as if the setting sun is glowing behind his eyes. He’s beautiful, but Koushi pushes that thought to the back of his mind. He already knows that Daichi is beautiful, and he needs to focus on the situations at hand. 

“The night parade,” Daichi says again, standing up and pulling Koushi up beside him. He swings the other man into a tight embrace and whirls them around joyfully. 

“Wait,” Suga says breathlessly, “what night parade? I don’t understand.” 

Daichi stops spinning, but doesn’t loosen his grip around Koushi’s waist. Koushi can feel the beat of his heart, thumping rapidly through his clothes. “In a few days,” Daichi says, “spirits from all around here will parade down the road alongside the forest. I’m obliged to join the parade, even if I’m not normally allowed to leave the forest. If you grab me then, and hold on long enough, the spirit of the forest will have no choice but to let me go.”

“Are you sure?” Koushi asks, pulling away doubtfully, “I don’t want you to get hurt if this fails.”

Daichi sobers, the light filling his face dimming briefly. “Even if it fails,” he says seriously, “I would rather have tried than never risked anything. If I’m trapped here for the rest of my life,” he takes Koushi’s hands, “I would regret not seizing the chance to be with you more than anything else.” 

Koushi opens his mouth, and then closes it again, the only sound that emerges is a puff of surprised air. 

“I really like you Suga,” Daichi says, smiling. 

“How can you say that so normally when you can’t even accept a thank you without blushing,” Koushi protests, hiding his emotional reaction behind good natured anger. 

Daichi looks somewhat sheepish, and Koushi pulls him back into a hug. “Tell me what I need to do.”

The procession of spirits flows down the hill not like a line of individual figures, but rather more like a river made up of thousands of tiny paper lanterns glowing blue and red and ephemeral gold. Koushi watches them pass from the bottom of the little hill atop which the road sits, crouching in the shadows of the rice paddy. His knees ache. His back hurts from crouching. Even the pounding fear of discovery has left his chest leaving only the eerie sensation of being both pulled towards and pushed away from the line of spirits. Although that probably has more to do with the nature of the spirits than it does with his waiting. 

He shivers in the chill of the early autumn night, feeling the sheet of paper on which he’d written a protective spell crinkle against his skin, and refocuses on the forms in front of him. The only similarity that really unites the spirits is their inhuman aura. They’re all different shapes and sizes, dressed in a kaleidoscope of different colours, fabrics, and styles. When the procession had first arrived, he hadn’t known where to look first, his gaze darting from spirit to spirit as they floated, walked, hopped, and flew in front of him. It was like visiting a city market for the first time. Eventually, however, the novelty of the spirits had worn off, and now he’s just tired and cold and crouched in a ditch beside a road. The thought of Daichi, Daichi, Daichi swirls around his mind, the only thing keeping him alert and rooted to his post. 

He watches the feet pass, most of them barely touching the ground, some passing right through it. A few spirits don’t have feet at all, their legs fading out of existence at ankle height. 

A hand catches Koushi’s eye, or rather the thing that the hand clutches in a white knuckled grip. It’s a Carmellia with two blood red flowers blooming from a single stem. It’s held so tightly that the stem itself is bent, and the flowers and leaves are beginning to wilt from the long separation with the rest of the plant. Upon closer inspection, he recognizes the hand to, palm large and fingers covered with callouses, like tree bark. Daichi. 

He takes a deep breath to calm himself, suddenly certain that the spirits can hear his frantic heartbeat and are only waiting for the right moment to strike. 

Daichi approaches achingly slowly, moving no faster than any of the other spirits. He’s disguised, just as he’d warned Koushi, in unfamiliar garments made of rich dark blue silk, patterns embroidered all over in multicoloured thread. Here, a flock of migrating birds, there a fern, a fox crawling through tall grass along the hem, and an eagle building a nest by the collar. Daichi’s face is obscured by the shadow cast by the conical traveler’s hat that he wears, features enveloped in dimness. Koushi squints, it’s hard to see any difference between him and any of the spirits in the procession, but upon closer inspection, he sees that Daichi’s sandals are covered with mud, and each step he takes sends a tiny puff of dust into the air. 

Koushi prepares to spring, easing into a crouch and fixing his eyes on Daichi, his heart in his mouth. 

Daichi draws level and Koushi leaps out of the bushes.

Immediately a staff shoots out of nowhere, catching Koushi squarely in the gut. He falls to his knees, the air knocked from his lungs. 

Daichi’s head snaps up at the sound. He notices Koushi for the first time and his mouth opens in a silent shout. He rushes towards him but it pulled back by another spirit. 

Koushi’s lungs burn like he’s breathing smoke, but at the sight of Daichi being pulled away from him he hauls himself up again and surges forwards, grabbing at Daichi’s hand. 

Something behind him grabs him again and tries to pull him away. He scrabbles for purchase on the dusty road, arm outstretched. His vision tunnels until all he sees is Daichi’s hand. 

Daichi drops the double headed carmellia, twisting towards Koushi. His hat has come loose in the struggle and Koushi can see his eyes, wide with desperation as he tugs against his own captor. 

The spirit holding on to Koushi grabs at him again, it’s hand finding the magic spell and it recoils hissing like a boiling kettle. Koushi stumbles forward, snatching at Daichi’s hand. For a terrible moment his fingers slip apart in the sweat that coats both their hands, but then Daichi’s grip tightens. Koushi can feel the tendons moving in Daichi’s arm as he tows Suga towards him against the flow of spirits around them. 

Daichi takes a deep breath and centers himself, gathering his strength before yanking Koushi into his arms. 

Koushi reaches around Daichi’s back and slips his hands beneath the fancy obi, feeling cool silk against his skin and the sinking feeling in his chest that says the worst is yet to come. “I’ve got you,” he whispers against Daichi’s neck, feeling the other man’s short hair against his ear. 

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen next,’ Koushi remembers Daichi saying, ‘but the spirits will try to convince you to let go of me, and it won’t be pleasant. You can’t let go, no matter what.’

Daichi inhales as if to reply but the words are lost in a long low growl. Koushi feels hair spreading down Daichi’s neck, growing thick and soft and he closes his eyes before he sees too much, tightening his grip. He can hear the quiet pop of bones as Daichi’s limbs change shape, becoming something strange and dangerous. The other man’s center of balance shifts all at once and they fall, rolling around on the dusty road, spirit lights wheeling above them. The air is crushed from Koushi’s lungs for a second time, and he gasps, inhaling dust and fur. Suddenly he is holding not a man but a great white wolf, slobbering and gnashing its teeth by his shoulder and scrabbling to get away. It’s a wild animal thinking only of escape. 

It’s still Daichi, Koushi tells himself, trying to forget the razor sharp teeth and fighting the power of the strange muscles beneath him. He pictures Daichi’s face, illuminated by the late summer light through the trees, the scene dark green like the depths of the forest. Daichi’s voice like leaves telling him not to be afraid. Koushi tightens his grip. 

Beneath him, Daichi begins to shift again, wolf’s fur becoming short and coarse, growing bulky an enormous until Koushi can no longer reach around him entirely. The fabric of the expensive Yukata he had been wearing rips to shreds with the growth. The wolf’s snout becomes wide and short. A bear. Koushi can’t help but realize that if he hadn’t had the luck to land on top of Daichi when he’d first changed, he would have been crushed. He tries to push the thought out of his mind. 

The bear roars, a terrifyingly loud sound that fills Koushi’s mind and blurs his conscience with fear. He can feel long sharp claws digging into his back. He tries to remember Daichi’s face, but the only image he can conjure up is the other man’s eyes through the shadows of the trees, telling him to run far from the forest and never come back. Koushi’s clings to Daichi with desperate terror as beneath him the bear roars and snorts and rolls. 

Suddenly, Daichi shrinks vanishingly quickly, fur disappearing and growing white hot, changing without warning into a smoldering coal with all the heat of the heart of a furnace. Koushi screams as it burns his hands and chest and instinctively throws it away, off the path and into the damp rice paddy. It sizzles at it touches the still water and then everything is silent. 

It takes a few moments for the situation to catch up with Koushi. He sits up, blinking at the spirits that have gathered around him, bobbing disinterestedly. None of them approach him. He feels the quiet, and the cold autumn air brushes through his hair. 

“That was Daichi,” He says. His voice feels distant, like it belongs to someone else, and sounds lonely in the silent night. The gravity of what just happens begins to fall on him, cold and desolate and both light and heavy at once, like thick snow. “I threw him away.” Koushi’s mind is a field in winter, empty and vast, and it’s as if his breath has stopped halfway to his lungs. “I threw him-”

He scrambles to the edge of the path. The spirit lights do nothing to illuminate the bottom of the paddy. He trips down the little hill that forms the road, rolling and bumping until he lands in the icy cold water and mud beneath it with a splash. 

Koushi hauls himself up and starts searching the bottom of the paddy with his hands. His eyes are uselessly blurred with tears that drip down his cheeks and into the rice field. 

“Daichi. Daichi. Daichi,” he can hear himself saying over and over again, the sound of his words drowned out by the voiceless clamour of the white noise in his mind. The spirits line the edge of the road, looking down at him in silence. 

“Suga!” 

The voice startles him, silencing everything. Koushi blinks, trying to clear the tears from his eyes, frozen with his hands in the mud. Very quietly, almost afraid of the answer, he whispers, “Daichi?”

Koushi straightens and turns and there’s Daichi, smiling like the sun in the eerie light. The expression seems wide enough to make his face crack in half. 

“You did it,” Daichi says gently and opens his arms and Koushi almost falls into them. Daichi is wet too, soaked from head to toe, but his skin is warm. Koushi registers his heartbeat just before he realizes that Daichi is entirely naked. 

He tries to back away in embarrassment, but Daichi pulls him in closer, laughing in his ear, happier than Koushi has ever seen him before. And then Koushi is laughing too, even though he can feel tears still sliding down his face and he’s still ankle deep in ice cold water. 

Daichi picks him up, strong arms tight around Koushi’s waist, and spins him, laughing like he’ll never speak again. He puts Koushi down and stops laughing, and Koushi feels the laughter die within his own chest just as quickly. 

Daichi stares at him, eyes glowing with something more than the reflected light of the spirit lanterns, like he won’t ever look away. He brushes the tear tracks off of Koushi’s cheeks with hands large and rough like bark, like Koushi remembered them. 

“Thank you,” Daichi murmurs, eyes flickering down to Koushi’s lips and back up to meet his gaze. 

Koushi’s breathing is shallow, his heart beating too fast and the whole situation barely feels real. 

He leans in. 

Daichi’s lips are warm and gentle and much less desperate than Koushi expected. It feels like the sun. It feels like falling. His knees go weak and he’s glad that Daichi’s arm is still wrapped tightly around his waist. He slips his arms around Daichi’s shoulders. 

An ethereal jingle interrupts the moment, drawing their attention back to the road. The spirits are slowly moving off, streaming down the hill and evaporating into the morning mist. 

“What does that mean?” Koushi asks, watching them go. 

“It means it worked,” Daichi says, joyful like he is announcing a wedding. “We’re okay. We’re safe. I can stay with you.”

A wave of exhaustion hit Koushi all at once and suddenly he can feel every bruise on his body, every burn where the coal touched his skin, every rasping breath. He leans into Daichi, shivering in the cold that he hadn’t previously felt. Looking concerned, Daichi pulls him close. 

“We should probably get home then,” Koushi says, it seems to take an infinite amount of energy just to say those simple words. 

Daichi nods. Koushi can feel the movement against his own head.

“Home,” Daichi says, and he smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Send kudos and comments if you enjoyed <3
> 
> Hit me up at [ my blog ](http://h0pe-y.tumblr.com/) to chat or to prompt me. I basically can only write when I'm writing specifically for someone, so for me, aus and prompts are great.


End file.
